Let It Be

Arrivederci August

Saturday Solitude

Gardener's Blues...and Other Colors

Just checking in so you don't worry, but I'm not sure I have so much to say. Actually, I think the opposite is closer to the truth, but I don't trust I'll find the right words just yet. For now, a few random notes:

* I've gotten lots accomplished in the last day or so, not all of it at work or in the garden. I feel kind of good about that.

* The Olympics are winding down and due to work schedule, I'll only catch the late night stuff now 'til the end. Ah, well, only two years 'til the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

* 2010. That sounds a little weird, huh? Where are those flying cars and rocket jet packs, anyway? I'd happily settle for a few more windfarms.

* It turns out that two weeks of somewhat immersive coverage of the Olympic Games, enhanced by substantial sleep deficit was just the right combination for me to have committed to memory the entire NBC Fall Schedule of programming. Well, at least I've made note of when HEROES is starting up again. I really like that show.

* Thirty-five days since my last filthy cigarette. I know I've probably made it sound easy this time around. Nobody's more surprised than me. I attribute this both to my blasted optimism, which annoys even me sometimes, but also to no small sense of determination. I don't want to be a smoker anymore. (All of your encouragement and cheerleading hasn't hurt, either...so thanks for that.)

* Now that it's been a while since I took the smoke, I am noticing some improvements in me. I'm breathing easier, and I find that singing's a little easier, too. Well, the act is. I'm not feeling lately like I have a lot to sing about...but that's also possibly the reason I've been doing so much of it.

* Unexpected Carnage! A moldy and long-forlorn mousetrap in the cabinet beneath the sink here in the computer room sent a good-sized mouse off to his reward just moments ago. (We bow our heads and wish him well.) I'm blogging about it now, but it will be less creepy to address the larger issue of actually removing the body by morning light.

* I don't find that I like the wintergreen Altoids as much as I do the spearmint.

* As always, I find the garden awfully good for what ails me. Lately, there is almost always an undersong of crickets, but especially in the evening. There's quite a buzz at noontime as pollinators of all shapes and sizes ply their way from one flower to the next.

The goldfinches have been visiting the sunflowers regularly. I saw the hummingbird again this morning. And the bunnies are never far away, it seems.

Each day there are new colors, or fresh combinations of different flowers grown together. As I explore, I slow down and breathe a little easier, as a piece of my stress burns away in the golden sunshine. I can think of no better things than these tiny wonders and it's nearly impossible to be glum in their company.






"And that evening, while he was playing, a brown leaf, the first leaf of the fall, blew into the station and landed right next to the cricket cage. Now this leaf had come from New Jersey. A playful gust of wind danced it over the Hudson River, and up Forty-second Street, and whisked it down the subway entrance."


"Chester was in the middle of a song when the leaf came down. It was such a shock to see this little reminder of all that was happening in the country that for a moment he couldn't continue. But then he realized where he was and forced himself to go on."

- The Cricket in Times Square, George Selden, 1960.

Sunflower Morning

Well, in the interests of full disclosure, I'll admit right off that these are all pictures from Wednesday morning. But it was a full day at work and then the computer decided to be difficult late last night, so I'm only getting around to sharing them now.

As you can see, the sunflowers are the Energizer Bunnies of this year's garden: they just keep growing and growing!

Here's a fresh zucchini flower down in the ground level of the Three Sisters garden, where it's joined by a fresh chorus of allyssum. I know I expressed a little dismay not to have had any fruits from the earlier blossoming, but I just love the flowers, too!

I really don't feel like I'm in control of these sunflowers any more (really, any sense of control I might've once felt was more likely an illusion, anyway...).

For a while, I was at least keeping track of seedlings showing up more or less where I planted them...but I guess I was a bit casual with where the last seeds of each packed up, since they are showing up in great stalks in places that are now catching me by surprise.

There are zinnia seedlings coming up and I'll have to give them a closer look tomorrow morning, since I think I saw a flower bud forming on one sometime recently. I'm getting a little impatient with the other cosmos, and I wonder if perhaps they haven't received too much benefit from the fertilizer pellets I've scattered around.

I know they will often do well in lesser soils (thus their other name of peasant flower). But I sure hope they start blooming soon--their pinks and carmines and whites would be a lovely addition to the border, and I'm really very eager to see those seashell petals.


I also planted seeds for both ever last
ings (straw flowers) and statice, but I haven't really seen anything resembling them. Either they were not a successful part of this year's grand and glorious experiment, or perhaps they are waiting to surprise me when I have given them up for lost.

Meanwhile, though, the bachelor's buttons are putting on a pretty enjoyable show.

Speaking of good shows, did you know that the United States Olympic team has now earned 14 gold medals, 12 silver and 17 bronze, for a grand total of 43 so far at the Summer Games in Beijing?

This pair of Pansy Pals caught my eye in the lower realm of the front border. These guys are right out there in the sun, though no doubt the secret of their success is wrapped up in being at least partially shaded by some of their taller neighbors.

I did get to see a few meteors when I went out into the yard late the other night, but sadly, my plans to visit some light-pollution-free beach parking lot was curtailed by an annoying bit of cloud cover.

Ah, well...at least I got to see a few this year...and just in case, I'll wander out there shortly to see if I can catch a few more. Meanwhile, the moon was nearly full tonight and if she was shining in your window, it's because I asked her to look in on you. ; )

Meanwhile, for those of you breathing a sigh of relief (or wistfulness) that I'd not shown you any morning glories...well, here they are, happily cavorting with one of the cleome plants. The morning glories are continuing to be a challenge, as I have to unwrap them from around the various flags on the fence every day.

But still, as incorrigible flowers go, they are fun to have around. Next year, I'll have to encourage them to climb on the sunflowers, instead of the fence.

That'd be fun, I bet.

Thursday in the Garden

An early morning today for work and the day was dull and gray. While it looked like rain was likely, it never really materialized. This was fine, as we had some yesterday. Also, you'd be amazed what a rainy day does to traffic on Cape Cod. It is NOT pretty.

But the nice thing about beating the sun out into the garden was the rare treat of seeing the morning glories still waiting in the wings, breathlessly awaiting their cue.

NOISES OFF: (loud cough) " And then, I said, all the morning glories along the fence came into bloom..."


It wasn't really a particularly gloomy morning, though, just a bit overcast and foggy, a condition that cleared away pretty nicely as the day unfolded, though sadly, I wasn't still at home to see the morning glories' big moment in the sun. But that's okay. There were other things.

Like this fantastic planting of Purple Coneflower (echinacea purpurea) at the Seaman's Bank. I use the Eastham branch at Brackett Farms. It's the picture at the bottom if you follow the link. I'll try to get some other pictures of the place sometime. They did a fantastic job of echoing/honoring the old farmhouse which was on the site for years.

It's a comfortable place to visit and I have to say, I've never been anything but pleased with the personal and friendly service here. (Plus, sometimes, in between customers, they visit the Midnight Garden! Hi Nan!)

After taking care of business, I lingered for a few minutes to enjoy the coneflowers and also a fun aeriel show presented by a pair of exuberant monarch butterflies.

There was a good breeze blowing there this afternoon, and that seemed to whip them around a little bit, fueling them to fly faster as they dipped and looped and made spirals together, chasing one another from flower to flower.

It really was great fun and impossible to keep from laughing right out loud at what seems to be their sheer joy at being alive. Another lesson from the garden.

I was lucky that this one decided that it was a good idea to rest, for a second or two anyway and so I got my shot to share with you, before the games resumed and the pair flew off to another part of the garden and I moved on to the rest of my afternoon. But not before deciding that I will definitely be re-introducing some of this wonderful purple plant into my garden in 2009.

Although the cloud cover had returned by the time I arrived back in Harwich, there was still lots to smile about in and around the garden...not the least of which was the latest harvest of cherry tomatoes.

Contrary to my first impression when these plants first started setting fruit, their flavor is now amazing me more with each taste, rich and tasty...and sweet as anything. I like to pick them and give them a little chill-time in the fridge (tho a few never make it in the house, of course).


In the windowbox on the back porch, the pansies are still carrying on, just as their cousins in the front garden are. It's kind of amazing, considering it's August.

These guys in the container, I realize, haven't had the fertilizer feeding that the gang out front has enjoyed, which explains their smaller flowers. I just think they look even sweeter that way.

Still, I ought to mix up a little something for them sometime soon, as reward for carrying on so far into the summer. I did give them a bit of a pruning tonight, as part of a massive dead-heading session.

More of the daisies have now been trimmed back to the lower leaves. Here and there amongst those larger leaves I can see the tiny buds that may form into additional flowers, though they doesn't always happen. As with the pansies, the Shasta daisies second or third wave of blossoms are considerably smaller. But since they are somewhat massive to begin with, this is not a problem.

I'm a little surprised by this different variety of black-eyed susan, which is, I think, a yellow coneflower. It's leaves are shiny instead of the furry foliage the coneflower rudbeckia on the other side of the fence sports and this is a much shorter plant.

I don't remember purchasing this one, so I wonder if its something from some of the random seed I collect here and there and scatter into garden beds...or if it was something that was here already that I'd overlooked initially.

I don't remember bringing it from the last location, although for a while at the beginning of the summer, I did think it was some of that marsh hibiscus I'd meant to transplant and apparently did not.

I like this next photo because you get to see all the different stages of a bachelor's button flower.

It's now been twenty days since that last cigarette. Sure, there's been a craving or two, but generally I couldn't be happier with myself and my success so far.

At Quitnet, I calculated that I've saved about $42 so far (probably more, since that's calculated on the half-pack a day I was smoking when I made this latest quit. I used to smoke more than that even...and was probably on my way back up toward a pack a day when I gave the Nicodemon the ole shoe-stomp. Plus, cigarette prices went up again about the time I made the quit...). Also, one day and twenty-one hours has theoretically been added to my eventual lifetime.

Not a bad thing at all. Of course, it suddenly occurs to me that I didn't plant any nicotiana (flowering tobacco) in the garden this summer. I suppose that's for the best; it would've just confused the issue. But next year, for sure...I love those flowers!


I also love the way the cleome have grown so big and strong, and there's still only just this one white-blossomed plant. All the others are indeed purple, as advertised.

In the background there, you can see another pair of those Russian Gray mammoth sunflowers rising up into the sky, with a third one drooping further back, it's flowerhead long past its prime. I might need a hacksaw to dead-head that one.

While going about the dead-heading this evening, I initially thought this faded marigold flower was infested with some kind of bug. But a closer examination revealed those to be sunflower seeds which were dropping freely from the prolific flower stalks high above.

Wouldn't it be fun if this turned out to be THE perfect spot for growing sunflowers? Ah, just imagine the possibility that they might reseed themselves in this location for years after I've moved on to another flower patch. Heh heh...I like that idea. I've left patches of foxglove and daisies and irises and assorted bulbs in a variety of places now...making me just a little more diverse than Johnny Appleseed or Miss Rumphius.

The Midnight Gardener: hapless romantic seed-sower, or gardening evil genius?

You decide.